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Near the end of last week I received a text from CM Punk that read something like, “Hey, I know you’re old and stuff so it’s probably too late for you, but it’s Cabana’s birthday next week and we’re having a surprise party on Tuesday. We’re all going to yell ‘Over the Top!’ You should come if you can.”

I was so torn – on the one hand, I knew Punk was singing the 7th inning stretch at the Cubs game that day – which meant they wouldn’t even be back at his house until almost 11pm. I get up at 6am to get Teno ready for school. On the other hand, or rather, on my left leg, I have an Over the Top tattoo because it’s the greatest movie about arm wrestling, truck driving and the love between a father and son ever made.

“Gahh, I can’t make it,” I replied. “But I’ll bake. What would Colt like?” The answer? Over the Top cookies. Game on.

Lucky for me, I had just been stalking The Decorated Cookie, and was anxious to try some of the techniques for drawing on cookies and making homemade fondant. So I set aside some time (two days, to be exact,) and what you see above is what happened at the end of those two days.

The Cookies

First, I decided on 2.5″ square chocolate sugar cookies. Punk had suggested chocolate chip, but I was worried they’d be too soft to hold up to all of the insane things I was about to do to them. In hindsight, I should have gone with vanilla sugar. I covered these in a poured icing and the chocolate cookies showed through.

Poured Sugar Icing

I made the dough, chilled it for about 2 hours, then rolled it out and chilled it again. I cut the shapes quickly and baked them. Once they cooled, I coated 1/2 the batch in poured sugar icing which I tinted white. (Tinted, because I used soy milk, which can make white icing yellow.)

Like I mentioned, I should have made vanilla cookies, and I was pretty sad to see my white icing not covering the dark chocolate cookies properly. I made another batch of icing and tinted that one blue, figuring it could be the sky behind a semi or something. Blue worked better, but still wasn’t perfect.

Marshmallow Fondant

I let those set up overnight. The next day, I went to Great America and rode rollercoasters all day. Then I went to Steak n’ Shake and drank a Nutter Butter milkshake. After that, I came home and made a batch of marshmallow fondant. If you’ve never used fondant, it’s kind of like Play Doh except you can eat it. Store bought fondant tends to taste like ass, but I admit I did use store-bought black and skin tone because I wasn’t certain I could achieve those colors at home. But for all the other colors I needed, I used this recipe:

• 4 cups mini marshmallows (I like Dandies vegan ‘mallows)
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 pound confectioner’s sugar
• vegetable shortening

Grease a microwave-safe bowl with vegetable shortening and lube up the paddle on your stand mixer while you’re at it. Add the marshmallows, water and vanilla to the greased bowl and microwave for 30 seconds, until the marshmallows start to puff and melt. Stir the mixture until it’s smooth and runny – you might need to zap it for a few more seconds to achieve this. Place the confectioner’s sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer, and add the marshmallow mixture to it. Beat on low until a round ball of dough forms. Knead the dough on a table dusted with confectioner’s sugar, wrap in plastic wrap and let it sit for about 30 minutes.

For each color I needed, a used about an egg-sized chunk of fondant. If you have food-safe gloves, now would be the time to put them on. Add a few drops of gel coloring (like Americolor) to the fondant, and knead it in. You’ll need a lot of coloring to make red, and if you want to make black, I recommend making modeling chocolate and tinting it black. Occasionally I had a hard time working the color in evenly, when this happened I’d nuke the wad of fondant for about 10 seconds, work in the color, and then let it cool and set up before rolling it out.

Bull Hurley-ification

Roll out the fondant, dusting your counter and rolling pin with confectioner’s sugar, and cut the shapes you need, or model shapes as if you were using Play Doh. For my South Park-like Bull Hurley cookies, I used a small round cookie cutter for the head, and a small square for his sleeveless Blaster shirt. I eyeballed the arms, and cut them with a pairing knife, and made his facial hair by rolling small pieces of black fondant just like Play Doh. His eyes were pre-made candy eyes I bought at the cake supply shop.

I should note that I also sketched my ideas before I got started, so I knew what colors to make and what shapes to cut out. I had some big plans to make semis and all kinds of things, but just as I was finishing my first 6 cookies, Teno came down with a gnarly fever and I literally finished the last 10 cookies in one hour. You can tell which ones I spend time on, but I hope Colt got a laugh out of all of them anyway.

I used food writers (markers with edible ink) to draw on facial details and other accents. For the arm wrestling cookies, I first cut a “w” shape and then used my fingers to reshape it into rounded elbows and clenched fists. I used the food writers to draw on fingers and tattoos.

At the end of day two I had 16 cookies, 6 of which I was super happy with, neatly stacked in a box and ready for Colt. But how could I get them to Punk’s house when I’m at work and he’s out of town? Solution: wrap the cookie box in plastic wrap, then in paper, and then hide it inside a shoe box and have Colt pick them up, and unwittingly deliver his own birthday cookies to his own surprise party! Genius.

Cookie Kayfabe

So on Monday night at 7:30pm Colt rang my buzzer and made his way up to my apartment. I was already nervous he was going to ask me why he had to come all the way over just to bring Punk an unusually heavy pair of Nikes, so when the first thing he said to me was, “smells good, did you make cookies?” I basically crapped my pants. I stammered something about having a sore throat and spraying Chloraseptic, which made no sense, to which Colt replied, “No, it doesn’t smell like Chloraseptic, it smells like cookies.” Then he held up the box and said, “Maybe it’s this?”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Then I just kind of shoved him out the door, thanking him for coming over and I immediately texted Punk a panicky text, which he ignored.

Anyway, for my first time 1) making fondant 2)using poured icing and 3) using food writers I thought they turned out kinda radical. I hope Colt liked them too, he’s a great guy with fantastic taste in movies.

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One less car, even though my bike is bigger than your car.

I know it may come as a shock to some of you that a jerk like me actually cares about the environment, but I do. Think of it this way – caring about the planet is just another way to be disgusted with other people, which is one of my favorite things to do.

I am generally pretty lazy, and easily grossed out, so you’re not going to come to my house and find a compost pail. And, I am a city slicker so you will also not find a garden in my non-existent back yard (although you will find dog-sized rats and a gaggle of filthy-faced, totally unsupervised children playing with rocks.)

What you will find, however, are some super simple ways I’ve found to cut back on the amount of stuff I throw away, the chemicals I was dump down my drain and the junk I  put into my body. So I thought I’d share what I found, and encourage you guys to share your simple eco-kitchen tips. Mine are baking-centric, but feel free to take your comments all over the kitchen.

Ok first things first, you need to buy stuff to bake stuff. Most of my vegan friends will tell you that a meat-free, dairy-free diet (and baking grocery arsenal) is about as eco-friendly as it gets. Raising animals for food has a significant carbon footprint, there’s no denying it – so if you’re up for it, opting to not use animal products in your baking is a step in the right direction. Regardless of what you’re baking with it’s always a good idea to buy local and organic when ever you can. It is pricier in a lot of cases, so no one’s judging you if you can’t always do it, but organic foods are grown without chemicals, which is good for your guts and good for the planet. Oh, and while you’re shopping for those chemical-free odds and ends, don’t forget your reusable produce bags. Why bother trying to save the Earth if you’re stuffing your organic apples into a bunch of disposable produce bags?

Skoy- like paper towels, only not.

Keeping a clean kitchen while you bake is kind of obvious, but doing it without going through a bunch of paper towels can be tricky. I’ve cut back on my paper towel usage a lot recently by keeping some Skoy cloths on hand. The 4-color pack is ideal for the kitchen because you can designate different colors for different jobs to prevent cross-contamination. I always had paper towels all over the place for cleaning up egg goo, wiping sugar off the counter, cleaning off my stand mixer… and now I just have a few Skoy cloths, which you can find pretty cheap on Amazon. They’re machine washable, dishwasher safe, and they dry really quickly so they don’t get germy or stinky. If you want to zap bacteria just microwave it for a few seconds and once you’ve worn one out, it’s completely biodegradable. Obviously you can’t use these in the same way in a commercial kitchen due to health code regulations, but recycled paper towels are a good second choice.

Lovely papers from BakeItPretty.com

I’ve posted in the past about the basic stuff all bakers should have so I’m not going to re-cover all of that, but I will update that info with some reusable and eco-friendly options you might want to look into. Cupcake papers are a must, and if you’ve been reading my blog at all you know that I am horribly addicted to expensive, colorful ones. Listen, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke and I don’t eat meat – if the one shitty thing I ever do is buy beautiful cupcake papers I think I’m still on the right track. In my defense, paper cupcake wrappers are technically recyclable and in many cases, they are biodegradable. However, you can buy unbleached baking cups that are a bit better than the bleached and dyed versions I love so much. If you’re just baking at home and not really giving your cupcakes away, you could go with reusable silicone baking cups. I know they’re a good idea, but they always come in horrible colors and I tend to gift my cupcakes so they don’t quite work for me.

The coolest, most boring thing ever.

Enough about cups – let’s talk about batter and frosting. I admit to being a former disposable pastry bag user. They just seemed easier to deal with – but actually, I was being lazy. Get yourself a few piping bags (you can get cheap ones from Wilton – possibly one of the only Wilton products I would ever recommend.) Now the worst part about using reusable piping bags is trying to dry them. Oh! But wait, here’s an ingenious idea that I’ve shared with more than one of you in the past – a bag and bottle dryer. You can use this handy guy to dry your reusable bottles, reusable snack & sandwich bags and also to dry your pastry bags!

A sustainable path for plastic containers.

Wooden spoons and mixing bowls, luckily, have not yet become disposable. But there are a few options out there for those of you who are looking to make your baking more sustainable. On the mixing bowl tip, there are these brightly-colored Preserve nested mixing bowls. Preserve products are made with 100% recycled (and recyclable) #5 plastic – which is non-leaching and BPA-free. Here’s the thing about recycling – it only works when you actually BUY things made from recycled materials.  So things like this are a really smart way to help contribute to that sustainable cycle. I recently replaced my splintered old wooden spoons (and other utensils) with bamboo. Bamboo is an organic, fast-growing grass that actually generates more oxygen than trees. Plus, it naturally contains an anti-bacterial agent so you don’t have to use harsh chemicals when you’re cleaning it.

non-stick reusable baking mat

Probably one of the biggest waste-savers I’ve added to my kitchen is a silicone baking mat. It’s neither fun nor sexy, but it’s pretty much eliminated the need for parchment paper in my baking. Plus, I can just wipe off the mat instead of washing my whole cookie sheet so I use less water and soap.

This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg, you guys, but I’ve made a noticeable dent in how much crap I throw away and saved enough money on disposables to make buying this stuff well-worth it!

Shameless plug: I also happen to be the co-founder of Greyslater.com, which specializes in cool, Made in the USA, eco-friendly stuff!

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Here’s a quick and easy way to make your cupcakes sweet, but not precious. Whether you’re playing tribute to Jaws or a certain hardcore band, no one will forget your Shark Attack Cupcakes.

I like to bake my Shark Attack cupcakes in bright red baking cups from Bake It Pretty – any flavor will do, but red velvet is particularly gory. (I use Super Red by AmeriColor for the truest color.) I top my cupcakes with a white buttercream – cream cheese frosting is great on red velvet – then I spray the tops with blue food color spray.

Drag a toothpick through the icing, creating realistic white caps. Cut out my DIY Shark Attack cupcake toppers, and tape or glue them to toothpicks. Pop them in your cupcakes when you’re ready to serve them (the grease from your frosting will creep up on the fins, so really wait until you’re showing these off for this step.)

“Smile you son of a bitch.”

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Dudes! I’ve missed you so much! I have been a bad, bad blogger and I will take 80% of the blame. I’ve been trying to be less of a jerk wife, thereby spending less time blogging and more time watching Fringe and Lost with Tony; we recently lost two really great people at work so I’m doing like, three people’s jobs; I no longer bake for the tea house I was baking for so I have to remember to bake for you guys even though you aren’t paying me and they were; and finally- Bake and Destroy is moving! So that’s all my fault. I blame the other 20% on you. You really blew it.

Anyway, Jess (aka TheTattooedMama aka All Things Cupcake aka Delicious Designs Studio) and I have been working on my brand new venture, BakeandDestroy.net. Ok, mostly Jess has been working on it and I’ve been e-mailing her things like “How do I work this plug-in” and “I want it to look like Peg Bundy on a skateboard.” Oh yes, she takes a lot of crap from me, but she’s an amazing designer and I totally recommend her to any of you who have been considering a new look for the new year.

Meanwhile, I’ve been fielding a TON of emails and My Space messages from new readers- which is totally exciting and also really embarrassing because I’ve been such a sloth about updating poor old Bake and Destroy. Most of the e-mails are “I just started baking from scratch” questions- things like, what should I always have in my pantry and how can I do this without spending too much money? People, these questions are exactly how I got started baking and destroying! I love cake, I love making cake, but I don’t have very much time or patience and my attention span has taught me not to invest too much money in any of my hobbies. Remember when I was scrapbooking? Yeah, me either. But I have a few hundred dollars worth of crap that says I was pretty into it for a while. So this one’s for my new readers: a beginner’s manual. Long-time readers, don’t space out on me. I need your help. I’m sure I’m forgetting things, and I’m sure my opinions on where priorities lie are going to differ from yours. Leave comments, help out some new bakers! It wasn’t so long ago you were frosting your cupcakes with a butter knife yourself.

Ok, first let’s talk about money. It’s really easy to spend a fortune on baking and decorating equipment – take it from the girl who’s addicted to Confectionery House’s $4 cupcake papers. Easy, but not necessary. We would all prefer to bake with all organic, locally-grown ingredients, and who doesn’t soak in the bathtub paging through the King Arthur Flour catalog like it’s the latest issue of your dad’s Playboy? But the fact is, if you aren’t charging a premium for your baked goods (meaning you’re baking for friends and family) it’s OK to use whatever flour is on sale and no one’s going to question your choosing Trader Joe’s chocolate chips over some shmancy mail order catalog brand. That being said, in baking, you get out of it what you put in. If you’re putting artificial vanilla and using cut-rate pans you’re going to get crap. So I can think of four key places to spend your money – extracts, spices, pans and produce.

29 years of baking & destroyin

Extracts: No baker should ever be without vanilla. Not vanillin, not artificial vanilla flavoring – just vanilla. It might be tempting to buy the $3 bottle in the grocery store, but resist the urge. This is a key component of your dessert and believe me, it’s money well-spent. Look for pure vanilla and don’t bother with your grocery store unless it happens carry gourmet baking ingredients. Check out places like Penzeys Spices or Sur la Table for affordable quality options. I picked up a trick from Cassie from How to Eat a Cupcake (expert bargain baker if ever there was one) – check out the edible gift isle at discount merchants like TJ Maxx and Marshall’s. Often times they have big bottles of Crushed Vanilla Bean Extract for like, $12. (Almond extract and citrus oils, too.) If you travel, or have parents who do (like I do) ask them to bring you high-quality vanilla if they happen to be headed to somewhere with fabulous vanilla- Madagascar, Mexico, Tahiti, etc.

Keep your standards high on all of your extracts and oils- don’t use artificial unless it’s entirely necessary (I have maple flavoring in my cupboard, for example, because real maple syrup isn’t as potent and it adds more sugar then I want to my recipes.) I’ll get to which extracts you cannot bake without in a bit.

Spices: Here’s another area where it’s tempting to grab whatever you can get at the grocery store, but where you’ll be greatly rewarded for your efforts and extra expense once you taste your wares. Find a spice merchant in your area and buy high-quality baking spices. If you don’t have a local spice merchant, get online and order these things from the best store you can afford. I’m just as bitchy and controlling as Martha, but I don’t have her money, so I top out at Penzey’s. You can still blow your budget here if you really want to, but I’ve found their cinnamon, nutmeg, anise, ginger and other baking spices to be flavorful and well-worth dragging Teno to a place full of things he’s bound to break. They sell whole spices, too, so you can grind them as you need them.

Produce: OK, I did say that you don’t have to spend a ton on your ingredients, but if your key ingredients involve fresh produce, make sure you’re buying things that are in-season and perfectly ripe. If you’re using zest, buy organic; if you’re baking with nuts, buy them whole and in small quantities so the oils don’t go rancid. People might not notice off-brand sugar, but they’re going to know an old walnut when they bite into it, and they aren’t going to like it.
So now you know what you don’t have to spend a ton of money to bake, but you do have to spend a little. While you have your credit card out, let’s talk about some other things you’re going to want to invest in if you’re going to earn the right to a Jessie Steel apron.

Basic equipment:
This really depends on what you bake. Me? I make cupcakes, muffins, donuts, cookies, and candy but not too many whole cakes or chocolates. What I consider basic equipment should cover you if you plan on making cookies, cupcakes, muffins and basic cakes. (I’ve added links to products I’ve had good luck with, feel free to talk about your favorites in the comments!)
Electric hand-held mixer – Good luck making cream cheese frosting without one.
Whisk- Necessary for delicate mixing, and doubles as a sifter in a pinch.
Measuring devices- you’ll need cups, spoons, a liquid measure and possibly a measure for sticky stuff like peanut butter and cream cheese. Make sure your set includes a 2/3 cup, 1/4 cup, 1/4 tsp and 1/8 tsp measure.
Mixing bowls- I have two sets of three with spouts for easy batter-pouring, but I got by with one set of three for the first two years I was baking on a weekly basis.
Wooden spoons- for mixing, and beating your children. (Not really, unless you want to raise serial killers.)
Heat-proof rubber spatula- Nothing scrapes a bowl like a rubber spatula, but make it heat-proof in case you also use it to stir your hot ganache.
Cupcake papers- you can get them on the cheap at your local grocery store. You’ll know you’re really a baker when this is no longer good enough for you and you find yourself explaining $75 charges for a shoebox-sized delivery of cupcake papers to your husband.
Pans- to start, you should get a muffin pan, some cookie sheets, a 9″ round cake pan, a 9′x11″ sheet cake pan, a 8″ or 9″ square pan, and a wire cooking rack.
Oven mitts- seems like common sense, yet I know people who do not own them.
Oven thermometer- Do not trust your oven, it’s a filthy liar and this item will prove it.
Offset spatula- Makes frosting neat and easy, forget the butter knife.

Not as basic equipment:

Bake Sale Ninja

This stuff is by no means “advanced” equipment. You won’t find any blow torches or chocolate molds here, but it’s stuff you don’t need right out of the gate. Pick these things up after you’ve been baking long enough to know your buttercream from your swiss meringue.

Candy thermometer- You need this to make marshmallows, caramel, and any other treats that require cooked sugar.

Pastry bags and tips- Figure out what you need, realistically. You can always buy more. I bought over 100 tips three years ago and I use about 10 of them. For big, beautiful swirls on cupcakes buy a big open star tip. I get that question a lot- actually, if you see something you love, ask the decorator what tip they used to achieve the look. Unless they’re a total asshole, they’ll tell you. I go back and forth about pastry bags. The lazy pile in me likes disposable, but the bleeding heart in me likes reusable. If you lean toward reusables, pick up one of these bag and bottle dryers, they make drying your pastry bags a lot less annoying.

Stand mixer- I rarely use my stand mixer, to be perfectly honest. I love it for buttercream, bread making and for whipping marshmallows but I never, ever put my cake batter in there unless the recipe specifically calls for it. It’s way too easy to over-mix your batter and get tough, chewy cakes with a stand mixer. That being said, wanting a stand mixer was the closest thing to penis envy I have ever experienced. I lusted after this heavy piece of machinery- this big, solid, powerful mixer that takes up way too much room on my counter top and tells my house guests “I beat the Christ outta some stuff in this bad mother” until I got one. Then when I got it, I wanted the bigger one. Now that I have the biggest Kitchenaid, with the biggest bowl and the most attachments and horsepower I want a full-on Hobart mixer like we had at Letizia’s. I want the bowl to be so heavy I can’t lift it by myself. I want to be able to lose an arm in there. Some women wish for breast implants, this is my sick and unnecessary desire. (You can get a deal on a refurb on he Kitchenaid website!)

Sifter- this might be a level one basic, but if you have a whisk that’ll do until you make it out to buy a sifter. Most dry ingredients come pre-sifted these days, but I don’t sift to make sure there aren’t any lumps or rocks in my flour as much as I do to add a little air to the dry ingredients, and to make sure they’re well-incorporated. You also can’t really bake with powdered cocoa unless you sift it, it’s made of lumpy evil.

More pans- By now you might find yourself wanting to make mini-cupcakes or a cheese cake. Welcome to level two. Pick up a mini muffin pan, a spring form pan, a jelly roll pan and whatever size cake pans you find yourself wanting. Once you’re bored enough, you might move on to donut and canoe pans (for making Twinkie-like items.)

That’s the hardware, now for the software. You’re always going to need to run out to pick up this or that for a special treat, but if you keep some basics on hand you should be able to make something without a trip to the store or a weird substitution.

Pantry staples:

My wee little kitchen

These are for the average American-style baker. I highly encourage The Urban Housewife to contribute ideas for the beginner vegan baker, although I will say I have whipped up dairy-free cupcakes due to a lack of eggs or butter on more than one occasion. I’ve found that if you have soy milk, apple cider vinegar and Earth Balance hanging around all the time, you can basically make 90% of the delicious items in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Anyway, back to us jerks who eat dairy:

You will always need:

flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, baking soda, baking power, salt, vanilla, and powdered (confectioner’s) sugar

It’s a good idea to always have:

cocoa powder- for variety, chocolate chips, peanut butter ,almond extract, bananas, rolled oats and…

buttermilk powder – This is really handy for two reasons. One, a lot of recipes call for buttermilk and even those that don’t could likely benefit from using it in place of milk. But who always has buttermilk in their fridge? Instead, keep a container of powdered butermilk in your fridge and follow the directions to substitute powder and water for deal buttermilk. It’s also really handy when you don’t have regular milk on hand. All you need is water and this stuff and you can save yourself a trip.

Of course you’re going to find yourself needing all sorts of things from time to time- different extracts, instant coffee, shredded coconut, heavy whipping cream, etc. But if you’re the type who doesn’t know what you’ll be doing an hour from any given time, keep the basics around and you’ll be in good shape.

Beat your batter

I have found one major difference between cookers and cakers. Cookers can wing it- my dad and my husband can take a few things, chop them, cook them, and make them edible. Cakers, like my mom and I, require certain ingredients and a basic set of rules to make things happen. So while I can tell you that you need the rules, I can’t tell you which rules you’re going to like best. This is where you’re going to have the greatest amount of trial and error in your baking life- recipe books. I love Martha, but I’m not too into her cake recipes. Her cookie recipes, on the other hand, are always winners. I love Paula Deen and her overuse of butter, but I was mistaken in believing that this would make her dessert book a classic in my kitchen. On a whim, I ordered a book by Julie Hasson and what do you know, it’s the filthiest, most dog-eared book on my shelf. It’s my go-to for everything and when, for whatever reason, something in her books doesn’t turn out I feel betrayed. My best advice is to buy whatever sounds good to you, and try to pick things up at the used book store or used on Amazon. I’ve bought and sold back a least 50 cook books over the years, but I wouldn’t trade my favorites for anything. I guess this is where I invite my veteran readers, who are probably bored to tears right now, to recommend favorites in the comments.

So you have the tools, the ingredients, the recipes… I wrote a blog a while back with some more advice… now get baking! If it was hard to do, someone as pretty as me wouldn’t be any good at it. I believe in you. Of course, I also believe in unicorns, so check your smoke alarms and good luck to you.

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pink cupcake

Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy!

I am adrift in a sea of homework, barely able to reach the surface long enough to breathe, eat a real meal or gasp-blog. I graduated almost a month ago, but I’m finishing my last few credits over the summer semester and it’s the craziest school has ever been in my entire student career. I’m taking nutrition, which is really fun, but it’s a five-week course with 15-weeks worth of information and work packed in. I had my first quiz Monday and my midterm Wednesday, to give you an idea. I also have a research paper to do on the nutrition of another culture and a final project for which I decided to make a video about the nutritional ups and downs of cupcakes. I thought that would be fun and somewhat easy, but quickly learned that it’s actually the hardest thing on earth. Sorry cancer doctors, trying to make cupcakes nutritious is actually way, way harder than your job.

I am also taking a photography class, which so far hasn’t done much more than prove to me that 1) I am obsessed with food and 2) I never leave my house. All of my pictures are of things I ate and/or things in my house. I like the class, I just don’t so much like realizing I have some kind of eating disorder and an incredibly boring life.

My final class is PR Writing, which I love and hate almost as much as I love and hate green tea. I love PR, you basically get to make stuff up and act like every thing’s way better than it really is. I always wanted to take a creative non-fiction class and this is as close as I’m getting until I go for my Master’s. And yet, it is also a five-week course with months and months worth of homework, tests and lessons packed in, none of which I can do until after 8 pm when Teno is asleep. Oh, and my internship on Time Out Chicago’s Eating and Drinking guide starts next week. I’m super excited and completely nervous. Oh, if you could see the things this internship is doing to my digestive system already… (That one is for Tony who is totally unphased by my poop talk at this point in our marriage. Aww.)

So my hair is falling out in clumps. I wish that were part of my new career in lying (PR) but it’s sadly, disgustingly true. My student loan has yet to come through, I need to get a job- in journalism- and I don’t think I’ll ever be done with homework, even after I’m dead.

Oh, and I’m also baking and baking and baking and barely, just barely enjoying it at all. Last week end I baked close to 300 cupcakes for a bat mitzvah and somehow got it all done in about three hours. What? I don’t know, dude. I just did it. The menu was lemon yogurt with ginger cream cheese, cookies and cream with chocolate frosting, banana with chocolate buttercream, Earl grey with lemon buttercream and pinacolada with coconut cream cheese.

I wasn’t going to post the Earl grey recipe because I haven’t had time to mess around with it and get it exactly the way I like it, but I got a lot of requests after posting the pictures so use it at your own risk. I also got a lot of requests to share the recipe for the pink cupcake at the top of this entry, a vegan lemon cupcake with lemon buttercream filled with raspberry preserve so quickly, I’m going to give you that one a well.

Earl Grey Cupcakes from Julie Hasson’s 125 Best Cupcake Recipes

These are for grown ups, I’d say, unless your kids are super, super weird or English. Actually, I don’t even know if most grown ups would be into these. Let’s say these are for chicks. Chicks will eat almost anything in cupcake form.

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 Earl Grey tea bas or 1 Tbs loose tea
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 6 Tbs unsalted butter, room temp
• 3 egg whites
• 1 tsp rated orange zest
• 1/4 tsp orange oil
• 1 cup buttermilk

Then you:

Preheat your oven to 350 and line a pan with paper liners. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Using whatever method works for you- spice grinder, primitive smashing and grinding action, etc.- grind the contents of the tea bags and add to flour mixture.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until well combined. Add egg whites one at a time and beat well after each addition. Add zest and oil, beating until smooth. Alternately beat in the flour mixture and buttermilk, beat until smooth. Pour batter into pan and bake 20-25 minutes or until tops spring back with lightly touched. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then cool completely on wire rack.

I frosted mine with lemon buttercream, but next time I’d take Julie Hasson’s advice and do an orange cream cheese.

Ok, next!

To make the big pink, raspberry-filled cupcakes I just used this recipe for lemon cake and used this tip to squeeze in some raspberry preserves. Then I ate one, gave Teno one, gave Jo five, packed some up for Teno and Bishop for the next day, watched about a million episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine, made dinner, gave Teno a bath, did homework, went to bed and went to school. Oh, and I also went to the stupid, boring Field Museum of Natural Stupid Boring History and looked at old corn and stuff for my research paper.

My friend Hillary made me cupcakes, did I tell you that? No one ever makes me cupcakes. Thanks, Hillary!

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Box of Faces

Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy!

I’ve found myself exchanging baking and frosting tips with a ton of people, lately, so I figured why not share this wealth of knowledge with the very people who have caused my head to swell to a point where I feel qualified to tell anyone how to do anything. I’m going to do this Q & A style to keep it somewhat organized.

Q: My cupcakes turned out dry, what happened?
A: Dry cupcakes could be the result of a weird recipe, over baking or most often, I believe, over mixing. In the case of a just plain no good recipe, I like to give every recipe that has a technical difficulty a second try. If it just tasted bad then why bother, but they turned out dry, too big, kind of soupy, etc. I try again, Chances are I blew it somewhere along the lines. Over baking is also a common culprit. To this I say get yourself an oven thermometer, even if you have a brand-new oven. I have a brand new oven, it’s off by about 50 degrees. Get yourself an oven thermometer. If you aren’t sure when your cupcakes are done here are some things you can try: bake them for the minimum time suggested by the recipe and then check them. I like to touch them lightly to see if they’ll spring back. If they do, they’re done. If they don’t, I give them two more minutes. Keep baking in two minute increments and checking them until they’re done. You can also use a toothpick, although this won’t always give you accurate results when you have things like chocolate chips or fruit in your cupcakes. But the rule is, if the toothpick comes out clean the cupcakes are done. Don’t be afraid to follow your nose, either, sometimes you can smell when cupcakes are done. Check them! As long as they’ve been in there at least 10 minutes they should be structurally sound enough to check up on. Also, make sure you’re using the correct time for the size cupcake you’re baking. Minis generally bake for 12-16 minutes, full-sized for 18-25 minutes. I have no idea how long to bake giant cupcakes, I have no need for so much cupcake for godzilla’s sakes. Ok, finally, the one that I would like to shout from the rooftops: DO NOT OVER MIX YOUR BATTER!!! I know electric hand mixers are really fun, stand mixers are even more fun, but these make it all too easy to over mix your batter and thus, make it gummy and dry. The more you beat flour once it’s been added to your wet ingredients, the more gluten you release. Gluten is what makes bread um, bread-like. Some recipes will tell you to use a hand mixer specifically, if you can see a reason why that’s necessary than by all means. But if you can blend the ingredients by hand, do it. I think over mixing is the public enemy number one of vegan cupcakes especially, until I started baking my own I thought vegan cupcakes came out gummy and dry because they were vegan. It doesn’t have to be that way if you’re careful.

Q: My frosting is runny, what did I do?
A: Well, possibly you were a little too excited about frosting your cupcakes and you didn’t let them cool all the way. If you remove the cakes from the pans about 10 minutes after baking and let them cool on a wire rack they’ll be cool enough to frost in no time. Just wait, it’s worth it. Otherwise you might be adding too much liquid. Buttercream isn’t an exact science, I don’t think I use the same measurements every time I make it. Sometimes I need 2 Tbs. of milk or cream, sometimes I only need a few drops. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it, that’s just how it goes. So once everything you need for flavor is in there, add liquid according to texture and consistency. Sometimes I add a few spoonfuls of vegetable shortening to my buttercream if I’m going to be piping it onto my cupcakes and it’s too fluffy to stand on its own. Otherwise I’d say maybe make sure you’re just using room temperature butter or margarine, don’t let it get too soft or melty, and again, don’t over mix. If you’re whipping up some fluffy buttercream and it’s looking melty you’re going overboard. Again, I know it’s easy to do in a stand mixer, so maybe try a hand mixer if you’re guilty of whipping the snot out of your buttercream.

Q: My cupcakes have weird chunks in them.
A: You need to mix a little more. If you’re getting blobs of flour or butter is settling at the top of your cakes, your ingredients aren’t mixed up enough.

Q: I want to make big piles of buttercream like at the bakery. What do I need?
A: For towers of bakery style frosting on your cupcakes, use a pastry bag and a 1M tip. That’s a Wilton tip, I don’t know what number it is in other brands, but it’s a really big closed-star tip. Cut the tip off your bag, drop the tip in and scoop your buttercream in. Don’t fill it to the top or the frosting will squish out onto your hand. Hold the tip slightly above he cake surface and squeeze a spiral staring at the edge of the cupcake and ending in the middle. Then repeat this step to make a second, smaller spiral on top of the first one. As I’m sure you can tell, I haven’t had any decorating classes, and I’m certainly not a teacher, so take a class if you want to get into roses and all that B.S. Oh, or watch it on You Tube, I’ve seen a lot of decorating tips for free there.

Q: I need to make cupcakes for my son’s birthday party, the theme is Jack’s Big Music Show and I can’t find any decorations at the store.
A: Jack’s Big Music Show or vintage nudie cards, you can make your own cupcake decorations so easily it’s stupid. I don’t like to be too literal with my decorating. If the party theme is pirates I’ll do shark fins and gold coins instead of the old Wilton pirate face or treasure chest. People really appreciate the fact that your cupcakes are one-of-a-kind as well, not just topped with things you bought at Party City. If I can use edible decorations I like to- check out Oriental Trading Company for the weirdest array of gummy candies and suckers I have ever seen. Organ Harvest gummies? What? Awesome. You can also roll gum drops and other soft candies flat and cut shapes out of them. Another trick is to find images online or in clip art and resize them- 2 inches at the tallest or widest- and then print out a sheet of however many you need. Tape the cut outs to toothpicks and stick them into piles of frosting. I love to do this with retro kitchen images, pictures of hilarious famous people and pictures of naked ladies.

Q: I make a huge mess when I bake, how do I make it easier to clean up after myself?
A: First, get organized. Review your recipe before you begin and get out all the ingredients you’ll be using. If you have rep bowls you can even measure things out to save time and to stay accurate. Second, use the correct sized bowls. If you’re mixing a double bath of cupcakes in a medium bowl you’re about to get messy. Finally, I lay a paper towel next to my supplies and I sit everything on it as I go. Drippy measuring cups, dirty spoons, rubber spatulas, eggshells… it all goes on the paper towel. Then after I throw all the reusable stuff in the dishwasher I can just scoop up the flour-covered, soggy paper towel in the garbage and wipe off the counter.

That’s all I have the energy for tonight, but leave me comments with your problems or questions and I’ll see what I can come up with.

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